Australians 'Reading More Often'

‘More Australians are reading, and they are reading more often,’ according to a new survey of arts participation by the Australia Council.

While the report Arts in Daily Life: Australian Participation in the Arts stated that ‘the way frequency of reading is measured changed’ between its previous survey in 2009 and its new survey in 2013, it found that ‘over half of readers are reading weekly, at 57% compared with an estimated 38% in 2009’.

‘This increase is seen across all the types of literature measured in 2009: novel reading is up 12 percentage points, creative nonfiction up nine percentage points, short stories up 10 percentage points and poetry reading is up eight percentage points,’ said the report.

The research found ‘slightly more Australians were reading literature in 2013, up to 87% from 84% in 2009’. It found poetry was read by 26% of Australians (up from 21% in 2009), creative nonfiction was read by 56% (up from 52%), and novels were read by 73% (up from 70%).

The study added some new reading categories for the 2013 study: it found 19% of Australians read a graphic novel or comic book and eight percent read a play during the previous year.